Over 100 years ago, the town of Rosewood was destroyed in an act of racial violence.
In 1923, a white mob descended upon the Levy County town and burned it to the ground. At least seven people were killed, although some descendants of the families who lived there say that number is much higher.
Steve Noll is a history professor at the University of Florida. For over 30 years, Noll has taught his students about Florida history after the Civil War.
He said despite how shocking the massacre at Rosewood was and is, it was not the only example of racial violence in Jim Crow-era Florida.
“I talk about, also, that it is not necessarily an aberration. That three years earlier, in Ocoee, the Black community in Ocoee was destroyed because Black individuals had the temerity to try and vote. And the town was pretty much destroyed,” Noll said, “And in Newberry, in the previous decade, there were lynchings that took place.”
Noll said teaching history like this is important for preventing future violence.
“I think it’s extraordinarily important to understand where we come from, and what has happened in the past, and that by repressing it or ignoring it, we tend to say that this stuff didn’t happen,” he said.
And he said learning about the past can teach us about the present.
“For African Americans, it is a reminder of a brutal past, and a reminder that this past is not so far passed,” Noll said. “It might not even be passed, when you look at the Rosewood sign and see that it is riddled with bullet holes.”
A real-life replica of Rosewood will be built on 29 acres donated by historian Lizzie Robinson Jenkins of Archer and funded by donations and $480,000 of state funds. The museum is scheduled to open in 2026.